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Saturday, July 16, 2016

Re Islam, Homophobia and the Orlando Gay Massacre (II)

This is the last
reaction to my column I’ll publish here. It has been edited for space.

By Abdulbasit Kassim

As expected, Muslim
scholars and pundits were on the defensive [after the Orlando gay club
massacre] trying to shift the blame of the horrible action perpetrated by Omar
Mateen away from Islam, the same way they did for San Bernardino, Boston,
Woolwich, Chattanooga, Paris, Brussels and lately Magnanville.

This trend has become
a familiar routine. While I totally loathe the dehumanization of Muslims, I
keep asking myself why the Muslim community should keep perpetuating itself in
a state of denial. For how long are we going to keep claiming that the actions
of groups like ISIS, Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda etc are theological outliers?

Before you spit your
tirade against me and censure me for being an orientalist in training or an
apologist for Islamophobes, let me state it clearly I am very proud of my
Muslim identity and I am an active seeker of Islamic knowledge.

[You are right that] unlike the Bible, the Qur'an does not
prescribe any punishment for homosexuality but just like other laws in Islam,
the ruling on homosexuality in Islam has been codified in the corpus of literature
on Islamic jurisprudence based on hadith collections, Ijma and Qiyas. No matter
how Islamic scholars in the West attempt to sugarcoat Islam with a cherubic
bulwark, Islam, like all other Abrahamic faiths, advocates strict penal
prescriptions on homosexuality.

Clerics should start approaching the topic of homosexuality
from an empathetic standpoint by promoting compassion for individuals who
struggle with homosexuality and finding possible practical solutions. Contrary
to conventional wisdom, I totally disagree that homosexuality is a choice even
though there is no substantial evidence to claim that it is congenital. The
ostracism, fear, depression, suicidal thoughts that pervade the hearts and
minds of the people who face this conundrum on a daily basis, even in the
Western liberal society, is sufficient to debar people from the lifestyle.

In fact, so many people go to the extent of subjecting
themselves to rigorous therapeutic processes with often long-lasting mental and
psychological effects all in a bid to conform to pressure from the society and
their religious community.

It is even worse in
the Muslim community where the tendency for homosexuality is high as a result
of the religion's strict rules on "Ikhtilat" (gender-Mixing). No one
speaks about it but they are right there in our masaajids.

The topic is treated
as a cryptic and abstruse issue and even when it is discussed the clerics only
focus on the punishment and damnation. The community does not offer any
profound solution to individuals who on a daily basis struggle with
homosexuality other than the advice to practice continence. It is only by
focusing on this underlying issues that we will understand how the Muslim
community is culpable for the action of Omar Mateen.

Let me explain the effects that the non-empathetic approach
towards the subject of homosexuality has generated in the Muslim community.
First, it has led to the increased visibility of Muslim clerics especially in
the West who have attempted to reconcile Islam and homosexuality and promote an
alternative discourse away from the discourse of damnation popularly promoted
by other mainstream clerics who seem to care less about Muslims who struggle
with homosexuality. Some of these clerics such as Daayiee Abdullah in the U.S.,
Muhsin Hendricks in South Africa, Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed in France, El-Farouk
Khaki in Canada and Rahal Eks in Germany do not only offer religious
instruction to Muslims who identified as homosexuals but they are among the
forerunners and advocates for "Liberalized Islam" which promote
gender-mixed prayers and other actions that do not have any basis in mainstream
Islamic theology.

Second, it has led to the increased visibility of pro-Muslim
LGBT organizations such as MASGD in the U.S. formerly AL-Fatiha, Salaam Canada,
Imaan in the UK, The Inner Circle in South Africa, Secret Garden Netherlands,
etc. These organizations offer a community space for Muslims who identify as
homosexuals to openly discuss their sexuality. These organizations have also
attempted, no matter how eccentric their arguments are, to reconcile Islam and
homosexuality with the support of the Muslim clerics mentioned above.

Third, it has led to a high rate of suicide among Muslim
youths who do not subscribe to the "Liberalized Islam" advocated by
the first two groups and at the same time cannot receive any help from the
mainstream Muslim community. In their state of despair, these youths silently
take their lives in order to put an end to their struggles. Although this issue
is often not discussed, it is a pressing issue for those who research and
document the lives of Muslim youths who committed suicide based on their sexual
orientation.

Fourth, ironically it has also led to the rise of
radicalism. This is the typology that Omar Mateen belongs. For the youths in
this typology, they are often the victims of the religious damnation. Since
they cannot develop the effrontery to seek help from the Muslim community,
their little exposure to radical literature often makes them develop the belief
that the only means to get forgiveness and earn repentance from their struggle
with their sexuality is by joining radical groups in order to kill and become
Shaheed thereby earning a ticket to paradise, no matter how fallacious their
thinking is.

Lastly, it has also led to two types of marriages in the
Muslim community which is known but often not discussed: a) Marriage by
Disguise b) Marriage by Convenience. In the case of the former, the youth who
want to be respected in his local Muslim community and not looked down upon,
conceals his homosexuality and marries a woman.

The majority of this type of
marriages mostly end up crashing because the man, depending on his position on
the homosexuality scale, often finds it difficult to perform his sexual role as
a husband. Even when he does, he still sneaks once upon a time to engage in an
amorous relationship with other male companions. The wife would be the
receiving end in this type of marriage. In the case of the latter, the youth
finds a female who is also experiencing similar struggles with her sexuality
and they would both agree to marry in order to keep the eyes of their community
away from themselves while they go about engaging in amorous relationships with
their respective same-sex partners.

Kassim, a PhD student in Religion at Rice University, Houston, USA, can be reached at scholar.akassi@gmail.com

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About Me

Dr. Farooq Kperogi is a professor, journalist, newspaper columnist, author, and blogger based in Greater Atlanta, USA. He received his Ph.D. in communication from Georgia State University's Department of Communication where he taught journalism for 5 years and won the top Ph.D. student prize called the "Outstanding Academic Achievement in Graduate Studies Award." He earned his Master of Science degree in communication (with a minor in English) from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and won the Outstanding Master's Student in Communication Award.

He earned his B.A. in Mass Communication (with minors in English and Political Science) from Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria, where he won the Nigerian Television Authority Prize for the Best Graduating Student.

Dr. Kperogi worked as a reporter and news editor, as a researcher/speech writer at the (Nigerian) President's office, and as a journalism lecturer at Kaduna Polytechnic and Ahmadu Bello University before relocating to the United States.

He was the Managing Editor of the Atlanta Review of Journalism History, a refereed academic journal. He was also Associate Director of Research at Georgia State University's Center for International Media Education (CIME).

He is currently an Associate Professor of Journalism and Emerging Media at the School of Communication and Media, Kennesaw State University, Georgia's fastest-growing and third largest university. (Kennesaw is a suburb of Atlanta). He also writes two weekly newspaper columns: "Notes From Atlanta" in the Abuja-based DailyTrust on Saturday (formerly Weekly Trust) and "Politics of Grammar" in the DailyTrust on Sunday (formerly Sunday Trust).

In April 2014 Dr. Kperogi was honored as the Outstanding Alumnus of the University of Louisiana's Department of Communication. His research has also won international awards, such as the 2016 Top-Rated Research Paper Award at the 17th Symposium on Online Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin, USA.